Overall, I'm not on the side of the owners or the player (although I tend to side with the players in these CBA negotiations after siding with the owners last time around). I just want to watch NHL hockey. However, extorting money from local, state and federal government bodies to keep a business in a current place through the real or imaginary threat of relocation goes far beyond sports. Large businesses do it all the time, and often receive huge tax credits from the state and municipality to stay and, in some cases, move. Why do you think Panasonic is moving from Secaucus to Newark? They are getting a tax break to move even though its only a few miles away. Every state offers large tax breaks to get corporations to move to their state, which often mean the locality where that company is presently housed must make huge concessions in order to keep the jobs there. The owners run these large corporations, therefore it is logical that they would use the tactics they use in business in running their sports franchises and, frankly, who can blame them since it works (rightly or wrongly) each and every time.

Ultimately, the state or local government has a choice to make regarding what the value of retaining that professional sports franchise really is because they all KNOW, without a doubt, that they will NEVER recover their initial investment in the new arena or stadium during its ~30 year lifespan. Nobody forces the state or city to fund the construction of the arena but, for political and socioeconomic reasons, they choose to do so more often than not.

Collective bargaining is a result of the players unionizing, and probably was something the owners heavily resisted when the NHLPA was first being formed. I don't think you can definitively say that players would be making more money without collective bargaining. Maybe guys like Crosby would, but others like the 3rd and 4th line grinders likely wouldn't. Plus, without collective bargaining, each player could conceivable have a different set of contractual working conditions, which would be a complete nightmare. Moreover, the owners don't steal anything. People like you and I willingly pay thousands of dollars each season to watch the team play, purchase concessions, and buy merchandise. Nobody forces us to do it. If you don't want to pay $ to see the team play, don't go to the games. And if you don't want to pay money to Cablevision to get MSG+ on your TV, then listen to the radio broadcast or go to a bar.

That being said, I hope the players accept this proposal and we finally see hockey for the first time since June.

The game is too important on whole to let this crap go on much longer. The players need to accept this dea. The owners are ALWAYS going to have the leverage. They cannot afford to keep fighting and risk losing another season.

I really don't understand how anyone can be on the owners' side unless they are there for competitive balance reasons. The owners control an effective monopoly with the aid of governments willing to aid said monopoly. I understand that players get paid millions to pay a children's game, but that is because the owners are willing to pay them that kind of money - the players would still be there if the top salary was $100,000 (well okay, many of them wouldn't be, but that's neither here nor there). The owners have shown little desire to share revenue even though they are allowed to operate as a single entity when it comes to collective bargaining.

Taxpayer subsidized arenas have nothing to do with it. If anything, it benefits the players as well, since how profitable a team is allows teams to spend at whatever the cap is.

It's all about leverage, and how long the players are willing to go without getting a paycheck, and how long owners are willing to go without collecting revenue. The fans (or more precisely customers) have a say in it to, as both the owners and players lose out if labor strife makes people less likely to attend games once things are up and running again. "Fair", "blame" or "greed" have nothing to do with it.

As I've noted before, "Don't take it too personal Rafterman, it's only business."

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I collect spores, molds and fungus.Hello fellow American. This you should vote me. I leave power. Good. Thank you, thank you. If you vote me, I'm hot. What? Taxes, they'll be lower... son. The Democratic vote is the right thing to do Philadelphia, so do.How do you spot risk? How do you avoid risk? And what makes it so risky?

Most interesting was where he said cap will be around $59M and the floor will be 43M but teams could still spend up to the $70 cap, for this season only. I wonder if there will be any amnesty buyouts.

The $70 million cap is supposed to be lieu of amnesty buyouts, or at least as I understand it. Still, I don't know how teams can get to $59 million next season without allowing some kind of amnesty structure, unless the league took a really close look at the numbers.

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I collect spores, molds and fungus.Hello fellow American. This you should vote me. I leave power. Good. Thank you, thank you. If you vote me, I'm hot. What? Taxes, they'll be lower... son. The Democratic vote is the right thing to do Philadelphia, so do.How do you spot risk? How do you avoid risk? And what makes it so risky?

The $70 million cap is supposed to be lieu of amnesty buyouts, or at least as I understand it. Still, I don't know how teams can get to $59 million next season without allowing some kind of amnesty structure, unless the league took a really close look at the numbers.

For teams with a lot of large long term contracts on the books, or ones that are in need of re-signing a number of RFA's, this could be devastating. Could make for an interesting trade deadline/post-season trade market.

Overall, I'm not on the side of the owners or the player (although I tend to side with the players in these CBA negotiations after siding with the owners last time around). I just want to watch NHL hockey. However, extorting money from local, state and federal government bodies to keep a business in a current place through the real or imaginary threat of relocation goes far beyond sports. Large businesses do it all the time, and often receive huge tax credits from the state and municipality to stay and, in some cases, move. Why do you think Panasonic is moving from Secaucus to Newark? They are getting a tax break to move even though its only a few miles away. Every state offers large tax breaks to get corporations to move to their state, which often mean the locality where that company is presently housed must make huge concessions in order to keep the jobs there. The owners run these large corporations, therefore it is logical that they would use the tactics they use in business in running their sports franchises and, frankly, who can blame them since it works (rightly or wrongly) each and every time.

Ultimately, the state or local government has a choice to make regarding what the value of retaining that professional sports franchise really is because they all KNOW, without a doubt, that they will NEVER recover their initial investment in the new arena or stadium during its ~30 year lifespan. Nobody forces the state or city to fund the construction of the arena but, for political and socioeconomic reasons, they choose to do so more often than not.

Collective bargaining is a result of the players unionizing, and probably was something the owners heavily resisted when the NHLPA was first being formed. I don't think you can definitively say that players would be making more money without collective bargaining. Maybe guys like Crosby would, but others like the 3rd and 4th line grinders likely wouldn't. Plus, without collective bargaining, each player could conceivable have a different set of contractual working conditions, which would be a complete nightmare. Moreover, the owners don't steal anything. People like you and I willingly pay thousands of dollars each season to watch the team play, purchase concessions, and buy merchandise. Nobody forces us to do it. If you don't want to pay $ to see the team play, don't go to the games. And if you don't want to pay money to Cablevision to get MSG+ on your TV, then listen to the radio broadcast or go to a bar.

That being said, I hope the players accept this proposal and we finally see hockey for the first time since June.

There is a fundamental difference between corporations threatening to leave and sports teams. Sports teams are a net negative to a city if the city foots most of the arena cost - most of the money they generate, besides going to low-wage workers who are involved with upkeep and concessions and the like, goes to players and the owner, both of whom rarely live in the city. There's a difference between offering a tax break and offering to build an arena, also.

I agree that the formation of players unions were, at first, bad for owners, but now they are bad for players. The owners want desperately to win, gone are the days of legacy ownerships and people who bought a team for $100,000 or whatever for whom this is their primary business. Without the controls that they impose on players via lockouts or threatened lockouts, spending in the NHL would be much, much higher.

NHL.com has the full proposal laid out on the website. Gee, they're not trying to save face at all, are they?

http://www.nhl.com/i...s.htm?id=643570"Following is the full text of the NHL's offer for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement in order to preserve a full, 82-game season that the National Hockey League presented Tuesday to the NHL Players' Association (along with the accompanying commentary and descriptions also provided to the NHLPA). While the original intention was not to release the details of the offer publicly, not surprisingly there have been widespread reports attempting to describe and characterize the terms of the offer that understandably are incomplete. As a result, we believe that full public disclosure at this stage is both necessary and appropriate."

I just want there to be a season by the St. Patricks day whereabouts game. Turning 21 a couple weeks before. Would be an awesome experience

You think you might get boned. I turned 21 in April of 2011, would have been nice to turn 21 at the start of the playoffs, I was thinking, "we've made it every year since 97, this year will be no different", then the clusterfvck that was the 10-11 season happened....lol.

lots of reaction on twitter talking about how much players are "giving back" and that they are transferring wealth to the owners. now keep in mind, i am firmly in the players cam this time around as opposed to when i was very much behind the owners the last time. but with that said, i think guys like brooks and alan walsh aren't completely explaining what HOW the money is going from players to owners.

as i read it, there is no roll back and no player's salary is getting cut.

what the propsal suggests is that the players take 50% of HRR (ignore for a second what HRR is defined at. For this argument, let's say its exactly as it is now) going forward.

the players will still get portions of their salary deducted for escrow to ensure they are not paid more than 50%. but what they don't get, will get paid back to them over the life of their contract. So let's say that while Kovalchuk is supposed to get $11MM this year, after calculations of 50%, he only gets $7MM. The $4MM he left on the table will get paid back to him over the life of his contract.

Where will that money come from? It will come from Adam Larsson. In two years, when Larsson is an RFA the cap will be in such a place where he's going to get 5/25 instead of 5/29. That $4MM that's not there in cap space for Adam Larsson is going to pay Kovalchuk back.

Now this is a one to one scenario that is illustrating what the owners are trying to do as a whole. They are looking to put in every possible safeguard to keep player salaries and contracts to continue to spiral upward as they have. Instead of the cap rising $5MM-$7MM every year, it's going to rise $1MM every year. and with limits on term and free agency, the players will have almost no ability to get massive deals under this proposal. the biggest deal you'll see is 5/45 and that will go to basically 2 guys.

i'm not saying this is fair and i do not think the players should take it. but what i would like is that what I've written is better explained by the people doing the talking. i actually think the owners can win the PR battle and get the best of the deal if they get the 50/50, current definition of HRR, kill the redden rule, and even leave contracting as is. because at 50/50 and current contracts cut affecting the cap for 6 years, we'll see the cap get to about $70M in 6 years. they will have effectively halted the massive salary escalation we've seen and the players will be the ultimate villans if they don't accept.

edit: what's going to also help keep the cap down because of the cut/payback are the massive signing bonuses that got handed out to beat the cap and CBA expiration. those all get factored in. so 95% of the players union can thank parise and suter and richards and erhoff and weber for keeping the cap down for the next 5 years.

_________________________________________________________________
“They’re the ones that makes it happen,” Lemaire said. “It’s not us. It’s not me. It’s not the other guy. It’s not the guy before. It’s not the guy after. It’s them. And they have to take care of business.”
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"I guess I just miss my friend" (#28)

There is a fundamental difference between corporations threatening to leave and sports teams. Sports teams are a net negative to a city if the city foots most of the arena cost - most of the money they generate, besides going to low-wage workers who are involved with upkeep and concessions and the like, goes to players and the owner, both of whom rarely live in the city. There's a difference between offering a tax break and offering to build an arena, also.

You'd probably have to do a lot of number crunching on a case by case basis to determine whether a particular arena/stadium subsidy is a net positive/negative for whoever is footing the bill. They probably make less sense in places like New York, where people will live, visit and spend roughly the same amount of money, regardless of whether there's a new major arena or stadium there. But for the fact that the Prudential Center is there, I am not stepping foot in Newark except if I have to go to the airport. And for the life of me, I still haven't been able to pin down how much money Newark put into the arena, how much Newark pays for operating the arena through infrastructure, police and the like, and what cut of Pru Center revenue Newark gets. And that doesn't even get into how much money gets pumped into the surrounding businesses and what kind of subsidies those businesses got.

In any event, whether the public is getting screwed for paying for an arena really has nothing to do with who's side you ought to be on in the NHL labor dispute.

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I collect spores, molds and fungus.Hello fellow American. This you should vote me. I leave power. Good. Thank you, thank you. If you vote me, I'm hot. What? Taxes, they'll be lower... son. The Democratic vote is the right thing to do Philadelphia, so do.How do you spot risk? How do you avoid risk? And what makes it so risky?

Who cares - the Devils aren't a cap team going forward. Other teams will be hit much worse.

You can't really say that until we know what the cap is going to be in any particular year and what the market value is going to be for players the Devils want to lock up long term (barring new ownership that doesn't care about costs, the Devils will not be in the big free agent sweepstakes unless it's to try to keep one of their own players).

The Wild are going to be absolutely screwed with their long-term deals with Parise and Suter. All things being equal, that's 15 million in cap space for two players for more than a decade.

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I collect spores, molds and fungus.Hello fellow American. This you should vote me. I leave power. Good. Thank you, thank you. If you vote me, I'm hot. What? Taxes, they'll be lower... son. The Democratic vote is the right thing to do Philadelphia, so do.How do you spot risk? How do you avoid risk? And what makes it so risky?

BTW, is there anything about the cap hit for players on IR? There's room for shenanigans if a team could concoct some kind of injury for a player that's approaching forty and that still has a few years left to go.

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I collect spores, molds and fungus.Hello fellow American. This you should vote me. I leave power. Good. Thank you, thank you. If you vote me, I'm hot. What? Taxes, they'll be lower... son. The Democratic vote is the right thing to do Philadelphia, so do.How do you spot risk? How do you avoid risk? And what makes it so risky?

BTW, is there anything about the cap hit for players on IR? There's room for shenanigans if a team could concoct some kind of injury for a player that's approaching forty and that still has a few years left to go.

NHL.com has the full proposal laid out on the website. Gee, they're not trying to save face at all, are they?

http://www.nhl.com/i...s.htm?id=643570"Following is the full text of the NHL's offer for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement in order to preserve a full, 82-game season that the National Hockey League presented Tuesday to the NHL Players' Association (along with the accompanying commentary and descriptions also provided to the NHLPA). While the original intention was not to release the details of the offer publicly, not surprisingly there have been widespread reports attempting to describe and characterize the terms of the offer that understandably are incomplete. As a result, we believe that full public disclosure at this stage is both necessary and appropriate."

Oh, well. I just want it agreed upon and finalized.

Some analysts on twitter speculate the NHL released this not just to win the PR battle, to help ensure NHL players get it without having it necessarily be filtered through Fehr. NHL is hoping that this makes players put pressure on the union to take it. I can see why a lot of players would be ok with taking it too.

Also some details coming out about the revenue sharing stipulation. Not only does it go to 200 m, but the top 10 revenue teams would pay 50% of the pool. Also teams like Dallas and the Islanders would be eligible to receive money. The offer is a little better than I thought initially. I am optimistic a deal can possibly be done within 2 weeks. Especially if the NHLPA puts a compromised offer up to a vote.

I agree that the formation of players unions were, at first, bad for owners, but now they are bad for players. The owners want desperately to win, gone are the days of legacy ownerships and people who bought a team for $100,000 or whatever for whom this is their primary business. Without the controls that they impose on players via lockouts or threatened lockouts, spending in the NHL would be much, much higher.

What's European Soccer's labor situation? Is that what you have in mind when you consider a world without unions? Because they also benefit from extreme demand for their product that the NHL doesn't have. I think the CBA/Union is essential to giving the bottom half of the league stability to know it can keep doing business. Without any path to profitability since richer teams would simply steal their talent I don't think they could operate and would have to close down meaning fewer jobs for players.

In the context of Player Trades, participating Clubs will be permitted to allocate Cap charges and related salary payment obligations between them, subject to specified parameters. Specifically, Clubs may agree to retain, for each of the remaining years of the Player’s SPC, no more than the lesser of: (i) $3 million of a particular SPC’s Cap charge or (ii) 50 percent of the SPC’s AAV (“Retained Salary Transaction”). In any Retained Salary Transaction, salary obligations as between Clubs would be allocated on the same percentage basis as Cap charges are being allocated.So, for instance, if an assigning Club agrees to retain 30% of an SPC’s Cap charge over the balance of its term, it will also retain an obligation to reimburse the acquiring Club 30% of the Player’s contractual compensation in each of the remaining years of the contract. A Club may not have more than two (2) contracts as to which Cap charges have been allocated between Clubs in a Player Trade, and no more than $5 million in allocated Cap charges in the aggregate in any one season.

You could always trade cap space, that's what the Devils basically did with Malakhov. This allows you to trade part of a player's cap hit.

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I collect spores, molds and fungus.Hello fellow American. This you should vote me. I leave power. Good. Thank you, thank you. If you vote me, I'm hot. What? Taxes, they'll be lower... son. The Democratic vote is the right thing to do Philadelphia, so do.How do you spot risk? How do you avoid risk? And what makes it so risky?